


can't stop feeling

by lovesongs



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-25 22:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14986796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesongs/pseuds/lovesongs
Summary: jaebum didn't believe in fate.





	1. lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iridescentjaebum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentjaebum/gifts).



> it was inspired by a lot of things, in particular, jaebum's song 'bad habit'. i dedicate it to my friend, amber, who has a graduation ceremony tomorrow. enjoy! ♡

_It’s become like a bad habit_  
_That now I can’t be like everyone else_  
_Now it’s become something natural_  
_Even though you are next to me_  
_You are disappearing like smoke_  
  
Jaebum wasn't inclined to believe in fate. He ignored fortunetellers if he came across them on the streets, didn't attempt to interpret his dreams, didn't trust horoscopes.  
  
And him meeting that man, Mark, who was much older than him and a graphic designer, was a complete coincidence. They lit on each other at his school friend's birthday party set up as a masquerade; he stole his father's tattered tweed suit, a pipe and dressed up as Sigmund Freud while Mark was James Dean in his pitch-black coat and turtleneck. Even though his attire didn't look cheap, he still resembled a flat broke actor.  
  
His friend introduced them to each other, and they spent the entire night performing a mock psychoanalysis session in front of other guests. In the morning when they were supposed to leave the house and part ways, they turned roaring drunk in a squalid bar and ended up singing songs that nobody'd sung before that day and falling asleep in a hotel at hand.  
  
Jaebum fell for Mark in a second.  
  
Mark was thirty four and married.  
  
Although, according to the older, his marriage wasn't anything more than an arrangement.  
  
"She doesn't even love me", Mark muttered.  
  
"And you?"  
  
Mark didn't answer, instead, he pulled on his cigarette and closed his desolate eyes.  
  
-  
  
Jaebum was twenty three and worked at a sound-recording studio as a producer's assistant and at a restaurant as a waiter to help his mother square up his father's debt. His father'd been a well-to-do real estate broker before his business had gone bankrupt. He cut and run and left his family to handle the situation.  
  
It tore their family apart.  
  
His sister married her long-term partner, ambitious and on the up and up, and ceased the contact with both him and their mother, for all that sending money once in a while.  
  
He was living with his mother in their uptown apartment which was large enough for them. He could sneak in at night and his mother wouldn't notice and wouldn't go on at him in the morning.  
He had a separate room where he spent most of the time when he had a day off, every so often creeping out to rustle up dinner or shower.  
  
They barely talked, his mother and he.  
  
They could hardly be called the family.  
  
-  
  
Mark was his full-bore antipode.  
  
At least, he seemed to be one as they hadn't had much time to riddle each other out; they separated in the morning after they'd spent the night in the bar and in the hotel; their conversation was a scrappy blanket, a bundle of diverse pieces sewed up together, a jigsaw.  
  
That's when he fell for him. It was a moment, a split second that fluttered past him as fast as a bird, and he didn't have enough time to notch it.  
  
Once they bade farewell to each other at dawn, Jaebum dawdled home, hands tucked in his pockets, grinding a cigarette and observing the orderlies cleaning up the streets after another roisterous, side-splitting night.  
  
Then he discerned that he really was in love.  
  
And his love smoked Gauloises, listened to Tom Waits and probably loved someone else.  
  
-  
  
Mark rarely called in on his spouse in their apartment which was located in Gangnam. And to be quite honest, it belonged to her to the hilt, and he, Mark, didn't aspire to anything at all. He didn't delight in it, to tell the truth, for it brought to mind a glacier floating amidst the ocean.  
  
He opted for lodging in his studio apartment in Seongbuk where he could put his feet up after a spun-out working day and tipple without anyone bothering him with rigid, run-of-the-mill monologues about relatives and friends he'd never met in person, not even once.  
  
Mark still loved her after ten years of marriage.  
  
Although she didn't amplify on the subject which could only insinuate that she didn't feel the same and probably had a paramour on the side.  
  
He acquiesced and faded into the background.  
  
And perhaps he was a coward.  
  
-  
  
He worked at a publishing company which mostly issued popular scientific literature. He and another guy, much younger, Jinyoung designed book covers and thoroughly selected illustrations that matched topics reported. Others conducted the rest of the process.  
  
Their company's office consisted of four rooms, white and capacious, with vibrant furniture and harlequin posters pinned to the walls so that employees wouldn't get left cold during those seven hours they spent inside as a rule. They also had a coffee machine and a corner where they could take time out during lunch.  
  
Mark didn't do anything outside of work, devoting all his time to sketching and outlining, looking handy things, including compelling ideas, up on the Internet. Only his work could put his mind off his aberrant marriage and life in general.  
  
-  
  
A night downpour filled the gutters and drains to the brim, a horde of people and cars streaking side to side, compelling sidewalks and highways to bulge at the seams, a perpetual clamor of car horns and blethers congesting the streets as another spring day got under way.  
  
Jaebum was already on the go.  
  
He had to roll in a recording studio to set the seal on arranging songs they were supposed to release at the end of the week. He didn't mind passing his time in the studio, it put all his torn pieces in order, set his mind at ease, and he could breathe out after another row with his mother. She wished him to quit and apply for a lucrative position at a more or less credible company so that she wouldn't have to worry about it going bankrupt any minute. But he was fine and the studio was doing quite well. She didn't have to get in a fluster about it yet she couldn't stop harping on at him each time they bumped into one another in the kitchen.  
  
He was dead beat.  
  
He could message Mark since he had his number, but he didn't have a backbone to put his hand to the plough and strike up a conversation. How was he supposed to do it? Mark was older and, athough they spent that night after the party fooling around as children and quaffing, it didn't mean that Mark was as amiable and outgoing when he was sober. And maybe he'd forgotten all about their promise to meet under other circumstances.  
  
Suddenly, it was raining again.  
  
He puffed on his cigarette and stared down at a swarm of people under umbrellas as it seethed toward a bus stop and a subway station. He was at the studio, cooling his heels until his boss would show up and start picking on him as usual.  
He fished his phone out of a pocket and peered at the screen: he was in a quandary about a whole situation, concerning Mark. He swithered as to whether he could burst into his life all of a sudden and ask a simple "how are you" or not. Then he recalled that the older was married and beyond any doubt loved her and that he probably didn't stand a chance at all. He groaned.  
  
It was too complicated.  
  
-  
  
Mark's mother came out as lesbian after his father's death. Then she found a girlfriend who was in her late fourties and an actuary at an insurance company, and she sold their old house and instead bought a rather spacious and congenial appartment in the center.  
  
Needless to say, Mark was flabbergasted.  
  
However, he neither made a fuss about his mother's desicion nor he spurned her offer to introduce that woman to him; it was his mother's life, not his, he couldn't leave her out in the cold when she was in need of his support. In contrast, his oldest sister was tepid. She didn't arrive at a restaurant where they were supposed to celebrate, she didn't bother to greet them when they stumbled on one another in the mall.  
  
She still mourned their father.  
  
Mark could understand her. It was a bit hard to envision their mother with anyone else, but their late father. Moreover, a woman. Even so, they all had to accept it and get going. He deemed her efforts to protest against their mother's choice unavailing. She couldn't do anything despite giving her the cold shoulder and ignoring her calls and requests to pay her a visit on purpose.  
  
When he asked his sister about the matter, she didn't even answer. She changed the subject. Yet they couldn't blame her either. She always loved their father more than they did, her siblings.  
  
-  
  
Jaebum was still vacillating.  
  
He typed out a sheet long message and deleted it, then typed another one and deleted it again. They both seemed a bit sugar-coated when he read them from top to bottom. He couldn't grant the older the right to sneer at him or else it'd be too humiliating, and he'd need to escape the country or the planet at last. Obviously, he was in love with Mark, but he wasn't ready to set forth his feelings. It was a little too soon. He still had to weigh them up to fathom their depth, to see if they were profound enough for him to take the plunge. He couldn't run risks. He couldn't dispay his affection that soon so later, if he failed at pursuing the older, he'd laugh it off as a trick.  
  
He needed something that wouldn't sound as sentimental as the previous messages.  
  
That's why, after a scrupulous deliberation, Jaebum opted for a stiff "hey, how are you?" in the end. It was proper enough.  
  
-  
  
Mark was staring at his phone for a drawn-out minute, trying to figure out who Sigmund was with great effort. First of all, he didn't remember coming across a foreigner, secondly, he was pretty sure he didn't have a sole friend or an acquaintance with such a peculiar name. He attempted to picture all people he might've known, directly or indirectly, but it was of no use.  
  
He was still at a loss.  
  
"Hey", a devil-may-care voice pulled him out of a trance. It was Jinyoung, "are you spacing out yet again? We have a project to get done till tonight."  
  
He tilted his head slightly, "Piss off, cully."  
  
"Who in their right minds uses this word today?"  
  
"I do", Mark chuckled, "I'm a hundred years old."  
  
A frown creased Jinyoung's forehead, but he didn't make any snide remarks. Instead, he waggled his head and cleared out, leaving Mark to digest his contorted thoughts on his own.  
  
He typed a reply, "Excuse me, who are you?".  
  
His phone tinkled a moment later.  
  
_"jaebum. sigmund freud. jinyoung's birthday."_  
  
Mark scowled and went all out to recollect each facet of that party: a flock of people he ran across at the masquerade fused into a mush, he could barely distinguish one face from another.  
  
Then he recalled: a guy, probably a student, dressed up as Sigmund Freud, three undiluted tequilas and gin and tonics, a hotel room with a large bed and maroon bedding, a conversation which scarcely made sense. He couldn't call to mind any word said during that night. Not even one. It was white noise or ultrasound, something that obstructed his attempts to restore a chain of events through his incoherent memories. He couldn't glue them all together, piece by piece.  
  
He felt old. It wasn't a pleasant sensation.  
  
He fished out a pack of cigarettes to see if there was one, at least, but it was empty. As a substitute to a cigarette which usually helped him to chill out and go easy, he filled his cup with strong coffee and drained it in one go, feeling how its pungent taste burned his tongue.  
  
His phone made a sound again.  
  
_"are you gonna answer?"_  
  
"No, why should I? I don't remember you."  
  
_"if you don't remember me in a sec, i'll post my oppo on you. you can forget abt your reputation"_  
  
"What are you? Seven?"  
  
_"you told me all about your past. how you and your gang gave young lads a bum steer and shaked pocket money out of them or made them go around the school pantless"_  
  
"That's not true. Even a half of it. Try something else, know-it-all", he snickered and was about to send something else to taunt the guy when a message sprang up on his screen.  
  
_"you really don't remember me? well then i'm im jaebum, twenty three y.o., and we spent the night in a hotel getting shitfaced and talking a week ago or so. we met at jinyoung's birthday party. you were dressed up as james dean"_  
  
Mark smiled.  
  
"Nice to meet you then, Jaebum. Again. I'm surprised you still want to meet after everything I'd probably vented on you. I tend to get a little too loquacious when I'm dead drunk."  
  
_"loquacious. what a smart word, nerd"_  
  
"Watch your tongue. I'm older."  
  
_"you're not korean. you'll get over it."_  
  
"Get lost, kid."  
  
_"how did you learn korean tho? ever since i arrived in the country, i hadn't seen a single american being fluent in korean or speaking it all. you were the first and probably only one"_  
  
"Jinyoung. He couldn't say a word in English when we met three years ago so I'd taught him the basics, and in return he'd done the same. Korean seemed interesting, and that's why I kept at studying it. It's always handy to speak a foreign language, especially on a vacation."  
  
_"oh, i see. that's cool. i've been learning english for a long time, but i still make mistakes. sometimes. i'd love to learn italian tho"_  
  
"Why Italian?"  
  
_"pasolini. i want to know his language"_  
  
"Well, go ahead. Italian's not that hard."  
  
_"anyways, can we meet and maybe discuss it in person or what? i think it'd be of use for both of us"_  
  
Mark mused on it for a second.  
  
"Okay. Where and when?"  
  
_"let's meet on saturday. i'll let you know a name of a place later. i'm a bit busy now. okay?"_  
  
"Fine. See you."  
  
_"yeah, bye"_  
  
That was going to be entertaining.  
  
-  
  
In the end they set their sights on Olympic Park. It turned quite cramped in the evenings as a rule, and they decided to meet at dusk when those who went for a stroll with their children returned home so they could sit on the grass, observe late joggers and couples make their way past them and drink canned beer. Mark wasn't surprised when Jaebum approached him at the station; for some reason he'd never imagined the younger having another appearance or voice. He reminded him of teenagers who wore baggy clothes and caps or beanies to seem sharp.  
  
It amused Mark.  
  
"Why are laughing?", Jaebum asked, irritated, "Are you taking the piss out of me?"  
  
The skin on his forehead crinkled as he frowned.  
  
"Hey, chill out, will you?", Mark tried to placate, lifting his hands up and putting on a cordial smile, "We're here to ease up a bit and talk."  
  
"Why were you laughing anyway?"  
  
"You just made me think of modern teenagers and their desire to come off as all the rage."  
  
"No, I'm not one of them", Jaebum grinned.  
  
"It's easy to get you worked up."  
  
"I just don't really like when people sneer at me."  
  
"I wasn't", Mark reasoned, "You look a bit differently. Without that beard and suit."  
  
"Like?"  
  
"Like a boy who stole his dad's cigarette to try it out. That mullet doesn't suit you though. You cause me to remember my cousin when he was much younger. It was rather chic back then."  
  
"You're talking like an old geezer."  
  
"Well, I am", Mark chuckled and opened his can.  
  
They didn't talk much after that little swap of barbed words, enjoying a summer evening as it gradually transmuted into a starry night in silence, sipping at their drinks and observing people sauntering back and forth.  
  
"You're married, aren't you?", Jaebum suddenly asked, making Mark raise his brows in surprise.  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"You told me last time. You also mentioned that your wife doesn't really love you."  
  
"Well, our marriage's not the happiest out there, to tell you the truth, but I can't complain. Her father'd done a lot for my mother after my father'd died so I'm sort of paying off a debt."  
  
"But you love her, don't you?"  
  
"It doesn't cut any ice", the older replied, "whether I love her or not. She doesn't. And that's it."  
  
Jaebum sighed and peered at the moon emerging from a herd of little lilac clouds.  
  
"You?", Mark questioned, smiling, "Single?"  
  
"Yes. At the moment. I am."  
  
"At the moment?"  
  
"Well", Jaebum lingered, "I'm still trying to cast around for a right person, but it's hard if you take my taciturn personality into account. I don't really have anything to say more often than not so some people consider me tedious."  
  
"There are traits that you don't fancy, aren't there? Right? So that's completely settled. People don't have to like you, and you don't owe them anything in return as well."  
  
Jaebum pondered his words for a few minutes, then cracked another can open and swilled it all at once, feeling as it went to his head. He was up to get tippling and maybe spend another night with Mark, doing no more than deliberating about things and fiddling. He didn't know which topics he was willing to bring up. Mark didn't strike him as a person who was keen on sleeping around, and Jaebum didn't want to be a mere one-night-stand and no one else.  
  
He didn't desire to be set aside.  
  
"You're so young", Mark suddenly spoke up.  
  
"And?"  
  
"I feel old."  
  
"You're only thirty four."  
  
"I've been on this planet for thirty four years, and here I am, stuck here, earning money and trying to get through each day. Also loveless marriages are a pain in the ass, in all honesty."  
  
"Well, you can always divorce her?"  
  
"It's complicated."  
  
"You, adults, are so boring", Jaebum sneered, "It may seem complicated, but once you look into it thoroughly, it turns out to be much simpler."  
  
"Not in this case."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Mark didn't answer. He stubbed out his fourth cigarette and threw all empty cans and wrappings into a paper bag, then stuffed it into a litter-bin nearby and unlocked his phone, staring at the screen for a second as if anticipating someone's call or message, and put it back in.  
  
"You assume that once you reach a certain age", he began on the spur of the moment, lighting up another cigarette, his bony fingers slightly trembling, "everything'll suddenly make sense, but it's not that simple at all. Nothing will go as planned until you get your shit together."  
  
"Did you get yours together?", Jaebum ragged.  
  
"To be frank, no. And I won't."  
  
"Why? A whole life's ahead of you."  
  
Mark smiled, but his smile was frail and muted.  
  
"I'm running out of time."  
  
-  
  
Jaebum was still dwelling on Mark's last words. He was trying hard to throw light on them, to piece them all together to see the whole picture, but his attempts weren't bearing any fruit.  
  
He ran his ruminations to earth.  
  
He envisioned Mark's deep umber eyes, warm yet frigid at one and the same time. They were so gaping that he could discern his reflection in them by a hair's breadth. They kept secrets that Mark wasn't willing to share. At least, for now. They still weren't close enough. A wall that split them off barely fractured after their amble.  
  
Mark was complicated, for lack of a better word.  
  
-  
  
After their falling-out years ago Jaebum and his sister hadn't seen each other much. She married her boyfriend and moved to Busan where he owned a penthouse in a high-rise and a Maltese terrier. A year later she gave birth to his niece and halted the contact with him and their mother once and for all, although she and her husband did help pay off a half of their father's debt.  
  
Mother often inquired Jaebum about her, but he had nothing to say in return. He didn't know. He couldn't make his sister call in on their mother every now and then to assuage her anguish; he had neither her number nor her address in Busan.

  
He was forced to concoct sheer lies, lies that could conciliate his mother, but only ruffled his feathers as he didn't possess enough power to oblige his sister to, at least, phone them on occasions.  
  
So when their mother died, he was inflamed.  
  
It happened three days after his so-called date with Mark, she was asleep in her bedroom as he assumed while cleaning up the kitchen. Then seven hours passed, she neither went out nor made a noise, and he felt uneasy so he called her name a few times to ascertain that she was still sleeping and entered her room. When he turned on the light, she was already dead, pallid and as thin as a reed, in her old dress. Later a doctor stated that she'd died of a heart attack.  
  
He didn't tell his sister and carried out their mother's burial under his own steam. Their mother'd been an orphan, as a result there weren't any relatives to escort her to her last resting place. He was all alone at the funeral.  
  
His sister was distant when he finally found her number through a common friend and convinced her to meet and actually talk. She came, dressed in a white linen jumpsuit and red pumps, looking as though she'd just gotten off a plane, sat down and heard him out, peeping at her watch and sipping her cold water now and then. It made him see red yet at the same time he couldn't force her to feign sorrow at best, on top of that, she didn't even attempt to sham her grief.  
  
Then she said before flouncing out of his life for all future time, "She'd always been a mouse and a fool. After father left she didn't care to lift a finger to help us pay out his dues. What had she been doing all the time? Nothing, she'd been lying there, on her bed, feeling sorry for herself. She quit her job and constantly vented her anger on us. Did we deserve such treatment? I don't think so. That's why I left. As for you, you assumed she'd thank you later. Did she? I doubt it. So move on. Stop blaming me for her frailty."  
  
-  
  
Mark's wife was solemn.  
  
She called him at noon and demanded that he come to their apartment straight after work. Her voice didn't give out anything that was about to transpire, she was calm as a millpond and as amiable as at all times. When he made it a bit later than he promised, she requested him to sit down and dine with her for once. Then she said.  
  
"That's what families are supposed to do, right?"  
  
She didn't appear irate or fretted, in fact, he didn't detect any hostility in her ever dulcet voice.  
  
At the end of a long and taut pause she began. First of all, she elucidated her affair with a colleague she'd indulged herself right after their wedding, secondly, she threw light on her feelings, regarding their marriage and his reluctance to live together. She added that at the start it hurt her a little, but as time passed she consented and accepted it for she didn't have any other choice. After that she admitted that she didn't love him as a spouse, however, she still considered him her family, a brother she could always rely on. It all was said in a good-natured, almost gentle tone as though they hadn't wasted their youth on trying to build a sand castle in a rainstorm and not until ten years later figured out that they couldn't accomplish it.  
  
She put her wedding band on the table.  
  
"I want to give both of us a chance to start over."  
  
Mark didn't have the heart to seethe with rage or oppose her offer. He swallowed and gave in.  
  
Their marriage reached a finale.  
  
It was as simple as that.  
  
-  
  
Jaebum was at home. He didn't message or call Mark in a week or so, maybe a little longer, as he was still trying to pull through his mother's death, bounce back and carry on walking the earth. He couldn't shut out his sister's words, turning them over in his fatigued mind many a time as if she could unsay them and he'd able to get ground and quit feeling so pathetic at last.  
  
He was obtuse. And sad. Obtuse and sad.  
  
He was peering at his phone when it flickered, indicating that he received a message.  
  
"Are you free? Can we meet and all?  
  
_"what's wrong? where?"_  
  
"I'll send you my location. To be honest, I'd never been to this place before. I'm tipsy."  
  
_"what's happened?"_  
  
"Just come first, will you? I'll tell you later."  
  
_"fine. you're paying for drinks"_  
  
"Alright."  
  
-  
  
Jaebum had to ride the subway to reach the bar where Mark was getting roaring drunk for a reason that he wasn't informed of yet. Mark in his smart suit and shoes which cost more than his liver was settled down in the corner, swilling one whiskey after another one without ceasing to get a deep breath and ease up. There weren't any other customers apart from him and Mark who wasn't willing to leave before long. He was trying to pull a bartender in his inane soliloquy, but the latter wasn't listening. He turned a deaf ear to Mark's obscure mumbling and continued scouring a pile of utensils in the sink.  
  
Jaebum ordered a pint of beer.  
  
"Hey, Mark", he called out, "I'm here."  
  
Mark then left the bartender alone and focused on his face, his eyes a bit dilated and tumid. He smiled, but didn't manage to keep his faint smile for a little longer as it dissipated in an instant, and he breathed out as if he'd been carrying a hefty weight for years and then before he had a chance to grasp it he was unladed. There were bags under his eyes, and he seemed a lot thinner than he'd been.

Jaebum tried to grin back.  
  
"You haven't been doing well lately, have you?"  
  
"We divorced."  
  
The younger frowned, "What? Why?"  
  
"She said that she wanted to give both of us a chance to wipe the slate clean and start over. That's bullshit. I can see right through her. She wouldn't bother to fret about my well-being if she didn't want to kill two birds with one stone: divorce me and get her share. I'm not an idiot."  
  
"Aren't you adding color?", Jaebum queried.  
  
"Hey, I hadn't been married to her for long ten years for you to tell me that I'm laying it on thick. She's a lot smarter than you probably think."  
  
"Well, it's all over, you're done. What more is there to say? And here you are, getting off your face because your marriage fell apart."  
  
"You're such a supportive friend", Mark muttered.  
  
"So you do regard me as your friend?"  
  
"Yeah", Mark responded, "Why not?"  
  
"No, I'm fine with us being friends and all."  
  
Apparently, Jaebum wasn't.  
  
Mark stared at him, observing his face, how it changed when he furrowed his eyebrows or put on a warm guise, smiling as broadly as he could.  
  
"You're lying", the older stated after a pause.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I'm not blind. It's written all over your face."  
  
"What?"  
  
Jaebum was trying to hide his inner panic.  
  
"That you're lying through your teeth. You're almost transparent, it's quite easy to read your mind while peering at your face."  
  
"Stop it, Holmes."  
  
"Tell me why you're so sad."  
  
Jaebum laughed, "I'm not sad."  
  
"You are", Mark scowled at his reaction, however, he didn't add anything else so as not to gall him.  
  
"My mother died, and I'm at odds with my sister. That's it. But I'm not sad. Not anymore, at least."  
  
"Oh, my sincere condolences. You should've mentioned it from the start. I wouldn't have put that all on you", Mark said as he rested his head on the bar counter, feeling bad in a trice.  
  
"No. That's completely fine."  
  
"What are your plans for the future?"  
  
"Haven't gotten any yet. And yours?"  
  
"Do you know a phrase "the call of the void"? It's used to refer to the urge to engage in destructive behavior during day-to-day life. Recently I've been thinking about swerving in to the opposite lane while driving or jumping off a tall building, landing on a lush car and staining it with my blood and entrails", he declared with ease.  
  
"You're nuts."  
  
"No, I'm fed up."  
  
Then Mark began singing out of tune in a language that Jaebum couldn't put a name to. Out of the blue he wished he were allowed to enfold the older in his arms, but he couldn't muster courage to do so.

It wasn't the right time.


	2. holic

Jaebum redesigned his late mother's room into a studio where he could screen off the outer world and plunge into editing and mixing music they'd recorded in their production company's studio so that he could cut out persistent thoughts of his mother and Mark which were saturating and coiling his tired mind. He was constantly musing on their last conversation and how fast Mark's mood altered, resembling the sea that whirled menacing waves up and flooded a sea-front during a blusterous storm and then transformed into a gleaming mirror at full tilt as if by magic. It could undergo a change in less than no time, being clear and aglow at a current moment and then dim and leaden at another one.  
  
Ever since his mother's death Jaebum was going in circles, doing his utmost to grade his wretched memories to take the edge off his desolation, not moving any farther. He was stuck fast in his routine of working and sitting on his couch, watching movies or playing piano to fill his apartment with sounds so as to reduce a feeling of being trapped in a cage, of solitude. He strummed piano pieces from Max Richter's "The Blue Notebooks" for the most part. He learned the chords when he was thirteen with the help of his maternal grandfather, a proficient pianist.  
  
Jaebum thought of his family as a whole.  
  
They all had failed in something.  
  
His mother'd been effete and trusting; his sister was self-absorbed and callous; his father was ignorant and flippant; concerning Jaebum, he was all of them gathered in one pile.  
  
-  
  
Their company was arranging a publication of a retired psychiatrist's autobiography. He'd never been as eminent as his colleagues. However, those memories that he conserved in the book were mostly related to his doctor practice and had about nothing to do with his life in general.  
  
Mark's functions, for the most part, lied in managing a photo session and selecting appropriate pictures of the doctor when he was still ambitious and full of vim and vigor.  
  
While moving heaven and earth to find his car keys and driver's license, Mark stumbled upon outcast fragments of the interview with the psychiatrist for their monthly magazine where they usually informed the audience about their upcoming releases and authors' memoir. He put aside his wallet and perched on the corner of the desk to leaf through them as he was killling time until Jinyoung'd finish his work and get ready. The younger promised to treat him to dinner after losing a bet, considering his crumbled marriage.  
  
_"I'd been married thrice in my entire life, and all of my marriages had fallen apart for I'd never paid enough attention to them, I'd never put as many efforts as my wives had in our relationships. When I call them all to mind, including a mother of my oldest child and son, we hadn't been married, you see, I recall a passage from that poem I read in a newspaper when I was young. I can't really cite a precise poet who wrote that one, I'm terrible at remembering names and dates, but I'm going to declaim it now if you don't mind. No? Alright. **Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind. Now you and I are quits. Why bother then to balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts***."_  
  
Mark breathed out and slid his hand in a pocket to dig in for a cigarette among a pile of coins. The passage hit close to home, so close that he couldn't help but snigger at his sentimentality.  
  
Once they divorced officially, he moved out of their apartment in Gangnam once and for all, moved out as in transported a few shirts and trousers he didn't bother to take earlier to his apartment and returned his keys. She sent back a necklace he bought while they were still dating. It was quite cheap and outdated. No wonder she'd put it on not as frequently as he'd anticipated.  
  
"Hyung", he flinched and looked up, his eyes meeting Jinyoung's all of a sudden, "What are you doing? I thought you were already in the car."  
  
"Nothing", Mark replied brusquely, "Let's go."  
  
Jinyoung didn't attempt to deluge him with questions he wasn't prepared to answer yet.  
  
-  
  
It was as easy as falling off a log to riddle Jaebum out if Mark was blunt enough. He was lucid and as green as grass, for all that sparing no effort to appear mature and pensive. Perhaps he really was an adult he strived to come across as even so Mark couldn't cease to look out for a teenager with his head in the clouds, concealed on the inside. He was curious to unfold him further, strip him off his sheathing and see that teenager as he was, insecure, hesitant and over and above that infatuated with him. Mark couldn't quite understand why, but he didn't mind as long as the younger disguised it and didn't bring it up. Mark didn't want to end up being a guilty party yet again. He had no love left, in other words, he couldn't grant it to Jaebum or anyone else because he was dead tired and empty. She'd sucked out everything she could get hold of and left him high and dry and bare.  
  
It was stupid and immature. He had to let it all go and move on, erase her from his memory as though she'd never been a part of his idle life. But he couldn't for he was scared to lose those flamboyant recollections of her he'd piled up at the back of his mind along with mental pain he was still doing his best to bring under control.  
  
-  
  
They met in a convenience store a month later. Mark was buying ingredients for his dinner and Jaebum was standing near a cash desk, trying to dig something out of a rumpled heap of clothes and other things in his backpack.  
  
Mark put on a nice smile and greeted him first. Jaebum winced and flicked his head up to see a person who called him, still slightly disoriented. He noticed Mark as soon as their eyes locked. He tilted his head, saluting him, and his ears and cheeks turned bright red. Mark grinned. He was such a child despite his appearance and age. It made him feel a little guilty and sad out of the blue. He couldn't hurt him or else he'd wind up being as ruthless and inconsiderate as her. His warm smile faltered and withered. He sighed.  
  
Jaebum didn't ask anything aloud.  
  
"Want to come over?", Mark offered, "I was going to rustle up a simple dinner anyways, but I didn't want to be alone. And then we chanced on each other here out of all places. A coincidence?"  
  
"Not sure, fusspot", Jaebum replied, his mouth cracking in a shining grin, "Maybe it's fate."  
  
"Fusspot? Who even uses this word nowadays?"  
  
"I do", the younger said, still beaming.  
  
"Yeah, of course. So?"  
  
"I'll consent if you buy me cigarettes. This old hag isn't willing to sell me a pack. I haven't brought a passport", Jaebum glared at a cashier.  
  
"Fine", Mark couldn't help, but roll his eyes.  
  
"Thank you very much, good sir."  
  
-  
  
Mark was slicing onions and doing a sauce to a turn at once while Jaebum was looking around his apartment, flipping through his sketchbooks, his fingers barely touching their pages, and humming a tune under his breath. He was peering at Mark's slapdash outlines and complete drawings and notes scribbled here and there in a haste, his eager eyes focused on each of them, afraid to slip up on a detail, a letter.  
  
"Is it Mayakovsky?", Jaebum asked abruptly.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Love's boat has smashed against the daily grind. This line is from his unfinished poem."  
  
"I assumed it was Sylvia Plath's at first."  
  
" _As they say, the incident is closed_ ", Jaebum recited another line, "You've gained knowledge, my child. You're all grown-up now", he added, sneering at Mark, a cunning glint in his eyes.  
  
"Shut up", the older laughed, "I couldn't imagine that morose poet writing such a romantic sugary rhyme. I'm surprised, to be honest."  
  
"Well, he was in love", Jaebum noted, "What do you want from a human being in love?"  
  
"Nothing. I was the same so who am I to judge?"  
  
"Was?", the younger queried, not casting a glance in his direction, "You no longer love her?"  
  
"There's no point in torturing myself anymore. We'd never been a proper family so."  
  
"And how does it make you feel?"  
  
"Bitter", Mark answered honestly, "Maybe it was all my fault and not hers. I'm not sure."  
  
"When it comes to relationships, each party's responsible for the consequences."  
  
"Have you ever been in love then? If you're saying such smart things, nerd", Mark changed the subject. He didn't want to entangle Jaebum in his melancholy. He was sick and tired of the past.  
  
"I am", Jaebum stated in a calm tone as if it was a day-to-day thing, "But I've been in a relationship before. It was devastating and didn't end well."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I was a fool. And he was worse."  
  
"I see."  
  
"You're not appalled, are you? That I'm gay."  
  
"No. My mother's lesbian and married to a woman. Why would I be appalled?" Mark poured something into a snifter glass and pushed it forward, a bit closer to Jaebum, "Here. Taste it."  
  
Jaebum sipped at his drink and cringed.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Calvados. I bought it last year during my business trip to France. Apple brandy."  
  
"Are you trying to make a sot of me?"  
  
"No, it's actually quite exquisite. You can drink soju or beer on a daily basis, but not calvados."  
  
Jaebum sniggered.  
  
"Bien sûr."  
  
"Je dis la vérité."  
  
"Je te crois. Il n'y a pas de souci, mon gars."  
  
Mark laughed and fished plates out of a dresser. He put them on the table and served the dinner, then he sat down and asked the younger.  
  
"You speak French, mon gars?"  
  
"Not really", Jaebum replied while fiddling with his utensils, "I've learned a few phrases for fun."  
  
"You're rather fascinating."  
  
"Merci beaucoup. J'essaye."  
  
They filled the rest of the evening with sad love songs they could call to mind in their state. They were dead drunk again, and Mark couldn't stop cackling at the sight of Jaebum messing about and doing all he could to hit the right note.  
  
" ** _It won't hurt anymore. Today'll never end**_**."  
  
"Which song is it?" Mark inquired.  
  
"I haven't a damn clue", Jaebum yelled and chortled, carrying on, " ** _The chime of the last syllable goes out, and a case of questions is empty. It won't hurt anymore. Today'll never end_**."  
  
-  
  
His hands were trembling, and he was sweating so hard that he could wring his shirt out or use it to clean up the floor, but he didn't care. He was concentrated on remembering each trivia to summon it all up later, at home. Mark's bright laughter and his dejected eyes, his veiny hands and austere colors which predominated in his apartment's interior, his habit of merging all the languages he spoke together in a pulp, resulting in Jaebum losing his presence of mind and just listening closely to a sweep of words, especially curse words that superimposed on one another. Mark was versatile, and at one time he couldn't stand his versatility, he wanted to fade into the background, become a supportive actor.  
  
And Jaebum loved him. Loved him so hard that while going home and looking up to catch a glimpse of a star he thought that he didn't need Mark's reciprocity after all. He was satisfied with what they had at that moment, he didn't want to be a reason of it shattering in nothing flat.  
  
He could wait. He was patient enough.  
  
He didn't desire to make mistakes any longer as he did when he and Jinyoung were still together.  
  
-  
  
Mark set down "things that do us apart" in a black pen, then he reached out for another color, brighter, red, to tabulate each item.  
  
He inscribed "faith, love, hatred, fear, betrayal" and added in blue, "all stories have an end" and "there are no happy endings". And put a date.  
  
17.08.  
  
"What's it?", Jinyoung pointed at the latter, "What's supposed to happen on that day?"  
  
"I'm resigning today. I've already handed our boss my application", Mark ignored his question.  
  
"What? Why didn't you tell me? What are you going to do? It's hard to find a decent job in our century. Maybe you should reconsider."  
  
"Are you my mother, cully?", Mark chuckled, "No, actually I want to take time off. I'm done up."  
  
"Are you sure that it's a right decision and you're not about to fuck up your life?"  
  
"Don't pile it on. It's not that bad. I'm not going to end up down and out on the streets."  
  
"I wouldn't be so certain", Jinyoung noted.  
  
"Oh, piss off."  
  
The younger yawned and ambled towards their coffee machine to pour coffee in his cup, "But if you do end up homeless and all, don't beg me to let you in. And for the record, I'm not living alone."  
  
"Smart ass."  
  
"But not yours."  
  
Mark slapped his bottom in response, causing them both to split their sides and tear up.  
  
"I'll miss you, crony", Jinyoung said once they chilled out and quit beaming at each other.  
  
"What does that even mean?"  
  
"A friend. It's a synonym, dullard."  
  
"Je t'emmerde."  
  
"C'est réciproque."  
  
-  
  
His apartment metamorphosed into a chaos. Or a desert. Mark couldn't put a name to it. He sold all his watercolor paint sets, a hundred color pencils which cost him a fortune, as for his clothes, he stuffed most of them into a garbage can and threw them out later when he went to buy cigarettes and beer. He felt a little better even though his distorted thoughts and feelings were twisted to form a tight knot he'd never untangle if he tried, he could feel it filling his ribcage to the brim and pressing on his heart and lungs, thus impeding his respiration and heartbeat. He barely could breathe at that point. He wanted to call Jaebum and ask him to come and soothe him, his all-consuming pain, however, instead of doing that he lit up a cigarette and opened a can of beer and let it slosh out until there was no beer left. He was acting as a child and not as a grown-up.  
  
He had a rather bad headache, but he didn't go and take a pill to dull it a bit. He didn't wrap a cold towel around his head or lied down. He was doing his best to get a grip on his ache without depending on other means to blunt it.  
  
In the end he didn't resist and phoned Jaebum.  
  
"I'm a bit busy", Jaebum whispered, "I'm at work. What about you? Aren't you at work as well?"  
  
"No. I've resigned."  
  
"Why? When?"  
  
"Yesterday? Can you come here, please?"  
  
"No, I can't. Maybe later, once I'm done."  
  
"I need to see you at this moment. Here."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"You love me, don't you?"  
  
A tense pause hung between them. Jaebum breathed in and out and coughed. Mark could hear his heart pounding so fast as if his chest was right there, under his ear. He grinned.  
  
"Well? Aren't you going to answer?"  
  
"Why do you care if I do or not?"  
  
"So I could understand how it works when you're on the other side. And someone loves you."  
  
"You find it funny? But it's not funny at all."  
  
"I'm not trying to make fun of you, idiot."  
  
"And what if I do? Are you going to punch me?"  
  
"You're odd."  
  
"Have you lost your mind? What's wrong?"  
  
Jaebum was dumbfounded.  
  
"Say it."  
  
"What?"  
  
"That you love me."  
  
Jaebum cursed, but Mark didn't quite catch it.  
  
"Can we talk later?", the younger questioned.  
  
"Come here. Right now."  
  
"I will, but after work or else he'll fire me. What's going on with you? Is it because of her?"  
  
Mark shrugged as though Jaebum could see him and pulled on his cigarette, white smoke forming cored rings as it came out of his mouth. He observed them soar and disperse in the thin air.  
  
Jaebum was still waiting for him to respond.  
  
"No. I'm going to sell my apartment", he declared, opting for dodging any questions for a little while.  
  
"Are you insane?"  
  
"Chill. I haven't found potential buyers yet so it's a little too soon to thrash out my plans."  
  
"Has a sectarian brainwashed you recently?"  
  
"Ta gueule. Ne fais pas passer moi pour un idiot."  
  
"Tu te trompes. You are. But fine, I'll be at your place in three hours or so."  
  
"I'll hold you to that."  
  
Mark hung up and flung his phone on the couch, his fingers still gripping a cigarette stub, ashes strewn across his shirt and pants. He peered at the ceiling and tittered. Jaebum did love him.  
  
A teenager in an adult body.  
  
He reeled out on his balcony and stared at the night, at how it swathed the city in a black knitted shawl with glistering stars stitched into it, illuminating the streets the way the sun did. He wasn't fond of mornings, especially the sun's rays peeking into his bedroom through a tapered chink between his curtains and intruding on his sound sleep and forcing him to face the reality, but at that second, staring at the sky, he wished to observe the sun appear on the horizon.  
  
"Hey, what are you doing there?", he heard Jaebum's grumbling behind his back.  
  
"I thought you'd come much later?"  
  
"Well, I left. So are you still prone to sell your apartment and furniture and all?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And what are you planning to do with receipts?"  
  
"Are you my father? When you heap me up with questions in that irritated tone, you remind me of him and my oldest sister, on top of that."  
  
"Listen, I don't want you to end up out there."  
  
"They all said that too", Mark chuckled.  
  
"Hey, it's not amusing."  
  
"Have you watched that movie? "A single man"? With Colin Firth and Julianne Moore?"  
  
"Yeah, but what does it have to do with you?"  
  
And Mark recited a passage.  
  
" ** _Waking up begins with saying am and now. For the past eight months waking up has actually hurt. The cold realization that I am still here slowly sets in. It takes time in the morning for me to become George, time to adjust to what is expected of George and how he is to behave_**."  
  
Then the older added as he stubbed out his cigarette and looked him dead in the eye.  
  
"I'm the same."  
  
"Because of your divorce? You're not a freaking school girl to want to die after breaking up with her boyfiend? Tell me what's wrong?"  
  
"Look, she's in the past. Of course, a part of me still holds onto that love, but another part that's standing here, right in front of you is nothing, but a hollowed out vessel, so it doesn't possess any feelings at all. And I'd die eventually either way."  
  
"What do you mean?", Jaebum was on the verge of losing control and clasping his throat. Mark could see it in his raging eyes. He was put out.  
  
"I'm terminally ill. Pancreatic cancer."  
  
"For how long have you known, for God's sake?"  
  
"For four months or so. My skin's yellowed a bit, and sometimes my back and abdomen hurt. They said that usually and in my case symptoms remained absent until an advanced stage. You're about to cry, idiot. Wipe your eyes."  
  
"Fuck you."  
  
"Is that all you want to say to me?"  
  
"Does she know?"  
  
"No, she doesn't. We'd always lived separately."  
  
"You're a fucking pinhead. Asshole. You could've told me earlier. We met four months ago."  
  
"I was aware of my health issues back then, yes."  
  
"And you didn't tell me."  
  
"Why would I dump my problems on a stranger?"  
  
"So you're about to die, and that's why you decided to sell everything you own and tell me the truth so as to take pity on me."  
  
"Overall, yes, that's it."  
  
And Mark cracked a can of beer open and gulped it down without stopping to inhale.  
  
"Why are you even drinking that shit? To deal a death blow? You're such a skunk."  
  
Mark grinned and threw the can out.  
  
"You can insult me all you want. But it won't change the fact that soon I'll die. I can die in my sleep, and you won't ever find out."  
  
He was startled when he felt Jaebum's arms clumsily engulfing his angular figure and his tears soaking his shoulder through his shirt. He'd been expecting them to have a dust-up.  
  
"Fuck you", Jaebum mumbled.  
  
Mark lifted his right hand and ran his fingers through Jaebum's hair. It was coarse. He put his left hand on the younger's back, caressing it as if he was a child in need of his comfort.  
  
"I'm a bad person so you really need to stop wasting your feelings on me. I'm not worth it."  
  
Suddenly, Jaebum pulled back, caught at his neck and hauled him closer to brush his chafed lips against Mark's pallid ones. It didn't last long, only a second that Mark didn't have time to settle and imprint in his memory in spite of the probability of it dying along with him.  
  
"Sorry", Jaebum croaked, rubbing his eyes.  
  
"That's okay. But I can't figure out a reason. Why do you even love me? I'm ordinary and hardly have any talents that could impress you."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
"You're so rude, cully."  
  
"Does anyone use this word these days?"  
  
"Jinyoung said the same thing. Maybe you could actually make up a team to roast me till I die. But he has a boyfriend as far as I remember."  
  
"I don't need anyone. Are you receiving your treatment, connard?"  
  
Mark joggled his head in return.  
  
"Why, for fuck's sake?  
  
"I don't see a point in it. Also my doctor informed me that there'd be almost no chance to recover."  
  
"You haven't even tried. You really want to die?"  
  
" ** _For the first time in my life I can't see my future_**."  
  
"Your life's not a movie. Quit quoting those guys. They only make it worse. I want to punch you."  
  
"Then punch me. Do it. Free your frustration."  
  
Jaebum snarled and hit him straight in the face, then after they stumbled on each other's feet and fell down, he straddled him and started raining hard blows on everything he could reach, fracturing Mark's nose, contusing his forehead and chin, discolouring the area around his eye. Mark wasn't attempting to repulse the younger.

  
He was lying there, limp, accepting his anger.  
  
When Jaebum quit whacking his head and regained a part of his self-control, still a bit steamed up after their spar, he toppled down on the laminate beside Mark, doing all he could to catch his breath and keep his cool, Mark spat his blood out and dissolved into laughter. He was so done and contented at one and the same time that he couldn't cease chortling anywise.  
  
"You really are as daft as a brush", Jaebum said.  
  
"You're not the first person to call me insane."  
  
"What's your biggest dream?"  
  
"I've never given it some thought."  
  
"Then wrack your brains and think about it."  
  
Mark cogitated on it for a split second.  
  
"I can't make up one. You've thrashed my last brain cell out of me, prick."  
  
"It was your fault. Blame's on you."  
  
"Je n'en doute pas."  
  
"Oh, can you shut up for once?"  
  
Mark turned his head and stared at him. Jaebum could feel his piercing eyes on his sweaty face.  
  
"What else?", he questioned, impatient.  
  
"Let's do that", Mark proposed.  
  
Jaebum grasped his not so subtle allusion.  
  
"No, I don't screw a person who doesn't love me back. At least, for the most part. That's not fair."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I'm not eager to feel used once it's all done. It might satiate your temporary desire, but what about me? It hurts to be left in the cold after a whole night of doing nothing, but making love."  
  
"You can close your eyes and dream up me being head over heels in love with you, right?"  
  
"I'm not going to do as you please."  
  
"Fine. Don't get worked up. I'm sorry", Mark mumbled while taking out another cigarette and burrowing in his pocket for a lighter. It was on the kitchen counter not far from them, but he didn't want to find his feet and saunter there. His body and limbs in particular felt as though they were filled with lead and iron at once.  
  
"You know", he continued, "when I was a teenager, my father passed for the same reason. I told my mother about my disease once I staggered out of a doctor's office. She had a meltdown right there, at a convenience store while buying trifles to adorn their house to mark her and her wife's wedding anniversary."  
  
"What about your siblings?"  
  
"I don't keep in touch with them."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"It doesn't really matter."  
  
"So are you going to give up? And that's it?"  
  
Mark grinned, "I tend not to get my hopes up when I know for sure that nothing'll help me."  
  
"Moron."  
  
"Abruti."  
  
"Bastard."  
  
"Salaud."  
  
-  
  
In the end, Mark sold his apartment to a woman who was of his mother's age and single and a month later went on a trip to Busan along with Jaebum and his friend. They all wanted to take their ease, do nothing and forget about their middle-of-the-road lives which weren't nice at all.  
  
Mark died in a while.  
  
Jaebum retained his sketchbook with Mayakovsky's poem, albeit not in full.  
  
**_"Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind._**  
**_Now you and I are quits. Why bother then_**  
**_To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts."_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * vladimir mayakovsky, "unfinished poem"  
> ** flëur - today (russian)


End file.
